The captivation was general, the blindness seemed to be so likewise; a feverish impulse carried people away into all newfangled ways, serious or frivolous.  Mesmer brought from Germany his mysterious revelations in respect of problems as yet unsolved by science, and pretended to cure all diseases around the magnetic battery; the adventurer Cagliostro, embellished with the title of count, and lavishing gold by handfuls, bewitched court and city, and induced Councillor d’Epremesnil to say, “The friendship of M. de Cagliostro does me honor.”  At the same time splendid works in the most diverse directions maintained at the topmost place in the world that scientific genius of France which the great minds of the seventeenth century had revealed to Europe.  “Special men sometimes testify great disdain as regards the interest which men of the world may take in their labors, and, certainly, if it were merely a question of appraising their scientific merit, they would be perfectly right.  But the esteem, the inclination of the public for science, and the frequent lively expression of that sentiment, are of high importance to it, and play a great part in its history.  The times for that sympathy, somewhat ostentatious and frivolous as it may be, have always been, as regards sciences, times of impulse and progress, and, regarding things in their totality, natural history and chemistry profited by the social existence of M. de Buffon and of M. Lavoisier as much as by their discoveries” [M.  Guizot, Melanges biographiques, Madame de Rumford].

[Illustration:  Lavoisier——­465]

It was this movement in the public mind, ignorant but sympathetic, which, on the eve of the Revolution, supported, without understanding them, the efforts of the great scholars whose peaceful conquests survived the upheaval of society.  Farmer-general (of taxes) before he became a chemist, Lavoisier sought to apply the discoveries of science to common and practical wants.  “Devoted to the public instruction, I will seek to enlighten the people,” he said to the king who proposed office to him.  The people were to send him to the scaffold.  The ladies of fashion crowded to the brilliant lectures of Fourcroy.

The princes of pure science, M. de Lagrange, M. de Laplace, M. Monge, did not disdain to wrench themselves from their learned calculations in order to second the useful labors of Lavoisier.  Bold voyagers were scouring the world, pioneers of those enterprises of discovery which had appeared for a while abandoned during the seventeenth century.  M. de Bougainville had just completed the round of the world, and the English captain, Cook, during the war which covered all seas with hostile ships, had been protected by generous sympathy.  On the 19th of March, 1779, M. de Sartines, at that’ time minister of marine, wrote by the king’s order, at the suggestion of M. Turgot:  “Captain Cook, who left Plymouth in the month of July, 1776, on board the frigate Discovery, to make explorations on the coasts, islands, and seas of Japan and California, must be on the point of returning to Europe.  As such enterprises are for the general advantage of all nations, it is the king’s will that Captain Cook be treated as the commander of a neutral and allied power, and that all navigators who meet this celebrated sailor do inform him of his Majesty’s orders regarding him.”